Quality of Life in patients with neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus Soroceanu A., Mazur M., Grib L.

, Mazur-Nicorici L. Background. Neuropsychiatric manifestations in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an area of scientific interest and important medical and social problem. In the past 15 years has been evoked increasing frequency, which determines expanding clinical manifestations and a reserved prognosis in case of neuropsychiatric involvement. At the modern stage, in literature nervous system impairment in SLE is considered one of the manifestations of the disease, causing reluctant impact on forecast. The objective:studying neuropsychiatric syndromes in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus and their impact on quality of life. Materials and methods. We examined 84 SLE patients who met the diagnostic criteria of systemic lupus erythematosus (ACR, Hochberg M., 1997) to complete the study group. Special Investigations focused assessment of disease activity, damage index, and evaluating the quality of life as the short form questionnaire with 36 questions in eight areas stratified, Short Form-36 (SF- 36). Results. Patients were divided according to the principle affecting the nervous system SLE (group I, n = 54) and without affecting the nervous system (group II, n = 30). The data shows the proportion of female / male who is disease specific: 53 ( 63.10%) women and 1 (1.19%) men in group I and 29 (34.52%) women, 1 (1.19%) men in group II. Analyzing the age of onset, we found that the disease was installed at the age of 13 to 56 years, average age 32 was similar- 32.75 and 30. 03 years in group I and II, respectively. Disease duration gap analysis revealed significantly from one month to 36 years, reiterating 7.81 and 7.95 years in group I and II, respectively. So, the examined patients had an average duration of lupus process about eight years (94.56 months). We found that in patients with nervous system damage in lupus activity was predominantly medium / high at 57. 14%, while in group without nervous system affecting medium / low at 30.95 % of cases. Analyzing the data we detected a low level SLICC in both groups, when a high or very high SLICC was found only in patients with nervous system damage. There were no organic damages in both groups, especially in patients without nervous system involvement. Quality of life was stratified into high (more than 50 points) and low (below 50 points). Lower life quality was linked to both mental and physical health, but mental health dominated in subjects with nervous system manifestations. Discussion. Lately, thanks to the hypothesis that the nervous system is concerned about significant morbidity and mortality has led to the extension of epidemiological research as application specific tools and testing NPSLE. It remains, however, predicted a disease problem, as disabling of SLE with great potential serious impact on patients' quality of life. Research results in this issue have concluded that the high activity is correlated with lupus process involving the nervous system. Conclusions. Application of SF-36 questionnaire in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus showed that low quality of life is determined by the involvement of the nervous system, primarily though mental health damage.